Samsung Galaxy S / Vibrant Video Performance Tests

Hello, dear readers!

I recently acquired a new cell phone – the Samsung Galaxy S (aka the Vibrant in America) and as with all new toys I love to push their limits! Today we are going to take a look at the video playback capabilities of the Galaxy using the stock video player that comes with the phone. Let’s begin!

SD Playback (Divx/xvid)The Galaxy easily chews through any standard definition videos you throw at it. In certain videos microstutter can be noticed, which is most likely related to a lower fps. 25fps and 30fps videos seem to play very fluently. A video example below!

Performance: Perfect!

HD Playback 720p (MKV/h264)I really didn’t expect much going into this test, but believe it or not, the first video I threw at the Galaxy played brilliantly!

However, I noticed that videos with DTS audio would not play back any sound.

I also noticed that some videos (mainly trailers) would not play back at all for some reason.

Conclusion: Most videos should work, but not DTS audio/wonky container configurations.

Performance: Works

HD Playback 1080p (MKV/h264)Unfortunately I never got this to work, as illustrated by my feeble attempts below:

However, don’t let this be a deterrent, because even distincting SD from HD material is pretty hard! 1080p would add nothing to the WVGA resolution of the Galaxy.

Performance: Does not work

ConclusionI was pleasantly surprised at the possibility for HD video playback on the Galaxy. This means less time converting videos to weird formats and more time viewing them. Cheers!